"Drunken" Barbie

When I was a senior in college I was assigned a 10 page paper in histology class. The introduction of the paper was completely mine as was the conclusion. But the body of the paper relied heavily on cited references. I did not have the time to reword other people’s ideas nor did I want to plagiarize. So the support of my thesis was more like a compilation of quotes.

This past Sunday my family and extended family finally got around to celebrating my youngest daughter’s 21^st birthday. I wasn’t in the mood to be self-inspired nor did I wish for the party to be devoid of a theme so I went to Google and Pinterest. And I literally laughed out loud when I saw that someone had made a sheet cake and arranged a Barbie doll to appear as if she had fallen down drunk into it.

And although I am not a baker I thought that even mentally challenged people could probably mimic this idea. And so I searched for a party-girl Barbie with brown hair to match my daughter’s. And then I went to the craft store to find some dollhouse wine bottles and glasses. I arranged Barbie’s dress up in the air so that her hand-painted thong hung out. And I placed a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. Her head was face down into the cake. Empty bottles were deliberately placed around her.

It was easy peasy.

The guests howled when they saw the cake. It was proof of something most of us had always suspected—Barbie was a drunken ‘ho.

And while I had copied the idea I viewed on the internet, I crafted it one step further---and made it uniquely my own.

And my histology professor chose not to penalize me for “over-citing” in my paper. She determined that since my thesis and conclusion were completely my own thoughts, and I had not stolen any words, that my paper was deserving of consideration. Ultimately the paper was my own creation.

And if you think about it, some of the greatest artists have re-worked old masterpieces. Andy Warhol did it with Botticelli’s Venus. Salvatore Dali, Jasper Johns and Keith Haring all recreated Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

   

Most new ideas are never truly new. They are just compilations and reworks--- evolved old ideas—contemporary twists on classics.  They are nothing more than a creative way to achieve an “A”—or sometimes, a creative way  to achieve a laugh.